I know, that is the point. Saying 99% of opinions are wrong is an opinion because by definition an opinion cannot actually be wrong in the sense of a provable statement. It is merely the particular viewpoint of the person stating it meaning another person's opinion can only be wrong relative to the person reviewing it. That is why you can't use an opinion as the basis of an argument that seeks to prove something as I was suggesting. I seriously feel like I am in a philosophy class right now...
You're wrong there, because if my statements are false they by virtue of their content cannot be used to dispute themselves.
They can be materially incorrect and contradict themselves however which is exactly what you did. Also pretty entertaining that you aren't disputing them being contradictory, you're trying to dispute the characterization that they are inversely inductive. At this juncture were being pedantic and just arguing about semantics. I've made my points so I'm done.
there's the fact that 99% of opinions are both illogical and wrong
You are aware of the irony in this statement and how it alone disproves your assertion right? You are literally stating an opinion about opinions being wrong and using that as the basis for your argument... That isn't proving a damn thing, its just waving your hands around saying out of the billions of people on Earth I am more correct than anyone because I said so. I'm talking about actual evidence to support the position which at best a psychologist might be able to get something with about a 70% confidence level (and even then, that is a stretch...).
Now, I know what you're thinking "but unthinking morons aren't necessarily corrupt" but that's where you're wrong, because they are, otherwise they would be thinking for themselves to begin with.
This is also a very flawed statement. If I took your word for it (shared your opinion within the same associative group) I would be one of your so called unthinking morons (and technically so would you by association), which by the very nature of me questioning your initial thought process I should not be (by your own logic).
Honestly you have basically displayed inverse inductive reasoning with these two statements.
New Jobs: Data analyst in many fields to sift through all the new information systems create Mechanics/technicians to fix the systems in place Producers of the mechanics/electronics/software platforms for automation specifically (this entails A LOT, there are companies and an industry growing around this concept alone) Consultants to provide oversight Contractors to install the engineered components whether that is a bunch of millwrights, electricians, IT staff or any number of other trade jobs Service techs to provide support and escalation support Technical writers to document how everything works Project managers Systems operation teams to monitor how everything is running
And seriously the list just goes on. I've worked in automation as a senior engineer that assisted with coordinating the project needs from inception to post production support. There are so many jobs just to do the automation and maintain it that we are easily replacing what is displaced and gaining huge amounts of efficiency and capacity while we do it. These are just jobs around the automation too, it doesn't even take into consideration entirely different fields that are enabled by having enough work-force to start up since they are free from the mundane work a different industry.
It also isn't like automation is all fire and forget. Most of it has to be revisited and updated at least every 5 years for minor stuff and 10 to 15 for major. People are scared of it because they are unfamiliar with it and resent the engineers that are automating these jobs away so they never want to talk to them. I've seen it first hand with people literally making snarky comments at me and my team on site because they saw it as us getting rid of them when in reality we either improve their efficiency, create a more skilled higher paying job for them, or they end up with a better paying job elsewhere because of other improvements in the tech.
I'm not saying to ignore the issue either. I whole-heartedly support retraining programs both external and internal to companies to help displaced workers. I also am a fan of improving the efficiency of an existing worker where possible rather than out-right replacing them. As I said, we can do more to help with this stuff, but people are panicking over something they clearly don't understand. If automation were going to cause so much damage to the workforce how in the 30+ years it has been around has it done so little of that damage? Our unemployment rate is at near record lows right now. We literally have more jobs than people to fill them. About the only thing you can argue is underemployment is a bit of an issue, but improved retraining programs could curve a lot of that right now.
SoCs are incredibly cheap. Intel offers a stock windows 10 stick for under a hundred (and I think you can load Win 7 on them if you want), and the countless pieces of hardware that can provide similar features with other OSs and such are all pretty cheap (I can do a RPi build for about $60 and maybe an hour or two of initial setup that can then be cloned forever in a couple minutes). Price point is the main reason they are so cheap because if they weren't someone would have already undercut them.
That said, yea my firestick is likely harvesting data about me in at least a few ways, but it is a significantly better platform that I can run on any TV and transferable. I really don't want the smart tv because it is developed by a company that doesn't specialize in software platforms AT ALL and there are way better options out there.
People do tend to believe their own bullshit up to a point. Often times they are trying to rationalize their actions with some simple justification or diffusing responsibility as Opportunist described, but it is unfair to say they don't understand the ramifications of their actions otherwise they wouldn't even bother trying to justify it. It is more of a survival mechanism and comfort as if everyone thought we had to do all these evil things constantly they would most likely go crazy and end up dead possibly taking others with them. They are some people that just want to make themselves look better and parrot what they see or hear others do/use as justifications, but I sincerely doubt it is nearly as wide spread as you imply. Of course there is no way to prove this either way as we are inferring the mindset of others on a large scale, but interesting difference in view point.
While that is unfortunate for you, I don't believe that is the norm at all. I worked over 6 years doing automation in the airline industry which has probably invested more in automation than nearly any other industry except maybe manufacturing and can say that rarely happened/happens. I worked at a lot of sites around the country over those years and due to the culture of it I kept in touch with a lot of people. Generally, managers were eager to move employees on to more valuable work. Still continues to this day, and I can't believe that it is just a culture in that industry.
Occasionally I did see an incompetent manager (not surprisingly, it was more common on the government side), but most of those were weeded out relatively quickly. There were a few exceptions similar to your former boss, but in my experience they are pretty far outside the norm. Hell even the bad managers had that mentality at least, they just weren't very good at applying it. Even in my current roll out of that industry, most of the managers here have to be pretty intelligent about the tech and business or they shitcan them before they do much damage. You probably did just get unlucky with your boss, or they were really unfamiliar with how to adapt to automation.
This is a fantastic point to bring up actually. Automation has been around for 30+ years, you would think that if it were going to destroy the working world and economy it might have made some progress by now right?
This is hyperbolic rhetoric from anyone afraid of change in general. Most of the reason that happened is because of the societal shifts that accompanied the industrial revolution. Everyone needed to go from trying to live on a plot of land and do everything themselves to a centralized production model. This required people to relocate and change the mindset of the past. Everyone now needed to congregate to do work, not sit in their shack of choice god knows where and have to understand an entire process to get any work done. Due to the resistance by the general population, that became difficult for people to accept until we had a uniting effort like a large scale war to fight. Before then, most of the fighting the US was doing was with the native american tribes and the Cuban Revolution (which was not a large scale war).
WWI was the first large scale conflict of the more 'modern' era and everyone quickly realized it really was an entire country having to fight the war simply because turn around time for both sides to produce supplies and machines for fighting was significantly better. Not to mention we were literally able to re-tool production to fit strategic needs as opposed to the old war mentality of fight with what you have because building a new one takes YEARS. As a funny aside, strange now that technology has advanced seriously on this front we are back to that in some ways (i.e. that aircraft carrier better not sink...). This led people to FINALLY overcome their aversion to industrialization (not to mention the idea had been around for a couple generations by that point). WWII was more of the same only by that point technology was openly embraced because everyone saw how much advancement was made during WWI. At the end of the day it really just fueled our love-affair with war-age technologies that continues to this day.
As I also alluded to, the old mentality had largely died off in those 80 years enabling people to embrace the new technology and society around it. The same is happening now, but the technology advancement is happening at a much slower pace than the during the industrial revolution.
Automation has been around for 30+ years and is still laughable low on overtaking most labor markets. I work as an automation engineer and can tell you it takes TIME to not just distill the processes down into a good logic flow, but to produce the technology required for that flow and to install it. When automation happens it is not an overnight thing at all, and the current major automation efforts are focusing on the low hanging fruit still. Industries with razor sharp margins that need to be able to breath, jobs that really are just time drains and don't require a lot of thought, and market correction where work was being way overpaid for to begin with. I'm sorry to all the manufacturing types out there, but getting $40 a hour to put a couple of screws in something is not what I would call valuable skills deserving more than everyone else. People may work hard at a simple job and that is admirable in a lot of ways, but as far as economics that alone is not what a person can live on.
Like it or not we are in a capitalist society and must compete on a global scale. That means efficiency will win out at the end of the day and society views each person mostly as a sum of their skills. I readily agree that it is a cold and callous viewpoint, but that is reality. As many others have pointed out, if we don't do it someone else will do it because Pandora's box is already open.
I would completely disagree with the viewpoint that automation could be apocalyptic to the economy and working though because the market simply doesn't work that way. Think about it this way, if automation starts seriously driving up the unemployment rate to something really alarming, even just 10%, how exactly will companies continue to invest in it? If that big of a segment has no real income who exactly is paying for these goods and services that would allow companies to have enough capital
While I have to concede he was a great contributor to the tech world for various reason (in spite of my particular disdain for Apple), please don't be revisionist in saying he was "better than Gates" or a genius at tech. Microsoft CRUSHED them while Gates was there once they were in more direct competition. Don't forget, for the longest time Microsoft worked on the Apple platform's software and overtook them much to Jobs' protest. Microsoft fell down under Balmer's leadership after Jobs made his return. It wasn't until 2008 that Apple came into force as they are (or maybe were, they are starting to fall some) now, and by that time Gates was mostly out the door.
Then, go read some interviews with Woz about what a sociopath Jobs was to get where he was especially in the early years of Apple. Go read about his terrible habits (he fucking died partially because he was a damn fruitarian and gave himself horrilbe pancreactic complications and refused to heed doctor's advice because of his own damn ego) and about how he was an asshole to everyone. Don't get me wrong, from what I understand Gates was not a lot better as a person (back then at least, say what you will but he is a hell of a philanthropist now and him and Melinda are aware of the unfairness that their wealth affords them), but that isn't part of my argument.
Jobs was less genius and more cut-throat businessman that did whatever he felt he needed to succeed. His problem the first time around was he didn't know enough on his own to be such a cut-throat ass hole and still succeed. He needed other people and once they knew how terrible he really was they were more careful. He then didn't add enough technical value to offset HIM, hence his ousting. When he came back he had made enough mistakes and cut enough throats to know what he needed to do and had a much better grip on the tech (Woz carried his ass in the early years, don't forget Apple II was Woz's design). He made some contributions to the industry for sure, but I would not come even close to calling him a genius with tech. Now marketing, I will give you, he did that pretty well and Tim Cook has largely rode what Jobs had already set up. Apple will likely fail now without Jobs because they got complacent with their product offerings and just started collecting money for marginal upgrades. Meanwhile Microsoft did great during Gates' entire tenure, and even if Apple has surpassed them, the company has never been on the verge of death and always stayed near the top.
Not really. Most states forbid previous employers from disclosing anything beyond, "Did X person work here?" and "Are they re-hirable?" Many companies try to get around that by asking for managerial references because the manager can then be counted as a personal reference that can disclose whatever they want. The last company I left actually straight up told me they wouldn't disclose anything to another employer just to avoid any possible liability from it, and I left on good terms with them. Basically, if you don't have any contacts you want to keep at the employer you are leaving, burn away if so inclined.
I personally haven't ever done it and don't see that situation ever arising for me, but who knows maybe some of these people were seriously slighted and wanted to teach their employer a lesson.
You would still have essentially the same with C# and Xamarin though albeit there would have to be a final abstraction layer where the Android and iOS calls deviate. The thing is, it would be no worse than implementing abstracted providers for data sourcing and would likely be much easier (probably a lot of 1-3 line methods implementing the specifics).
Call me skeptical but I am not impressed with Flutter as of this writing. For now I'll merely agree to disagree.
I disagree, but you are welcome to your opinion. I still wouldn't say lines of code is that big of a percentage of the codebase, but if that is your metric it might be a bit higher (45% I would hazard a guess). UI is significantly more boring to me as most of it is just setting up the relative calculation formulas and a lot of tediousness. Initial UI/UX design is more involved, but not exactly that technical either. In my experience a significantly less experienced and less costly dev can work on the UI and get it done exceptionally well, whereas if you have the same less experienced devs writing your baseline business logic and core code that application will be complete garbage regardless of how pretty the UI might turn out (I've watched it unfold a few times and then the codebase get thrown out entirely later on).
My design philosophy and experiences would make me stick to my original stance that Xamarin is much more well suited to creating these cross platform applications, but I can see your side of the coin as well. Time will tell who is ultimately right, but I would still remain cautious about Flutter given the landscape of dead services and frameworks Google has killed in just the last few years.
That is the point though. If they are going to have different UI implementations for each OS what exactly did being able to have the same one used accomplish for someone? Hence why I really don't see an advantage. This reminds me very much of when people used to use Infragistics constantly and it was the most painful thing to work with, but the original thought was that it could keep everything standard when it really didn't need to be standardized.
Not on a mobile platform where 90% of the code you write is GUI.
No. God no. I've written enough mobile applications before, it isn't even close to 90%, maybe 30% tops. UI is not the end all be all of development, it just seems that way if that is all you ever work with. The business logic and supporting code is way more important and a lot more costly to develop properly than UI ever dreamed. Maybe you have less exposure to C# designs styles, but everything is generally done in generics and binds in actual libraries later (sometimes compiler config, other times at run time). If the design is applied properly very minimal code has to be written in the UI itself (MVVM or MVC anyone?). I'm not sure what mobile applications you have been exposed to, but we must have vastly different design philosophies and/or experiences.
Not really sure what you think cross platform means, but Xamarin is for the purposes of comparison to the Flutter framework, which was what I was doing. If you somehow think Flutter is 100% cross platform on everything and not just "mostly" like Xamarin you're wrong. Now, I've not used Xamarin extensively, but my previous employer was using it to develop an enterprise level solution that was generally hardware agnostic so I do have familiarity with the high level capabilities.
If you mean certain pieces are not completely generic, obviously no framework is able to run both platforms 100% native from the EXACT same codebase as they have to be made generic and not all things in many of these types of platforms are analogous. If it were that easy the Windows/Linux problem would have been solved years ago.
From the comparisons, the main thing Xamarin has a short-coming in (some would argue it isn't a short-coming either) is the UI is not completely portable. Business logic and all the meat and potatoes basically are though which is way more important in my opinion. Flutter has some of the same portability, but from what I understand there is a way larger percentage of stuff that is not portable between the two. I also really think Flutter trying to make a generic UI is idiotic at worst and misguided at best, given a lot of software groups will/would likely be designing different UIs for each platform given the differences in the OSs anyway. Certain key functions are better used in different ways on each of the systems. If the model and controller are properly interfaced and abstracted anyway then it is much easier to just plug in whatever view is appropriate and not try to jam the square through the circle.
Short of straight up banning anything not developed on their platform (which guess what! they only control half of the platform both sides are targeting) it really makes little difference if they own the Android platform. They would have to individually curate and remove anything not developed on Flutter or whatever shit they settle on because the entire point of these frameworks and compilers is to make it so the system is running compatible binaries that are basically the same as the native code (obviously not the exact same, but the point stands). This would turn into a useless game of whack-a-mole and potentially wouldn't even matter because they can't make every publisher turn over their source code and development strategies to check. Even if they put it in the ToS they would lose a lot of big players immediately and kill their own platform.
My exact point is Xamarin fills this need already and first to market is a powerful position. Microsoft can also promote the exact same toolkit with pretty much just as much gusto. Do you think developers are exclusively looking at new tools through Google platforms only or something? Consumer usage of Android literally has no bearing on this given Xamarin and Flutter are marketed to developers.
I instantly thought the same thing. I really don't see any secret sauce to make people want to use this framework when Xamarin is free, supported, somewhat established, and from a large vendor that will be much more likely to continue putting time and money into it. Just because Google's army of "lets use eclectic shit because we have money to burn" programmers decided to develop something in it does not mean it will catch on with everyone else. They are welcome to try, but my gut says dead on arrival...
This is horribly bleak and way hyperbolic. Right now we can EASILY retrain the vast majority of the displaced workforce to perform in another industry. Hell, the automation creates more jobs doing different work, often times more than it displaced. Mechanics to maintain the equipment, frabricators and installers just to put it together, data analysts to look at the high level information the system generates, engineers to design it and build the logic, and the list keeps going.
This isn't even a new concept in human history. Technological advances have displaced workers for centuries and guess what, society didn't crumble. When they started making field plows to make planting easier I'm sure the farmhands wondered what they would do to survive and they found work in stores selling the extra produce and making the equipment. When Henry Ford came up with the assembly line, individuals that did the entire process of building something again started making the equipment for the lines, people moved on to selling the new surplus equipment, and they again kept designing. Each instance of a major technological advancement also had people shrieking about the end of days and the collapse of society. It still hasn't come and isn't likely to any time soon. We still have a lot of technology advancements to come.
There are only two reasons I see for people to fight it. One, fear of not being able to adapt, and two, no DESIRE to change. I understand a fear of not being able to adapt. There was a good article about imposter syndrome on Slashdot not long ago that gave a good perspective on some of that. With good retraining programs (which are to the country's benefit) this could be curved though. On the second point, I get people don't want to change, but unfortunately that is reality. Progress requires change and if we think about it on a societal and species level, it is necessary to survive. Humans are made to need change even though we fear it and sometimes hate it. I understand trepidation, but it has to be put to the side.
Well I suppose it was presumptive of me to assume no one would want to implement it, but its misguided at best and downright dangerous at worst. It'll drive the tech companies out of the country just like the general manufacturing. The difference is a tax would be government driven for no real reason other then poorly understood protectionism while the manufacturing was driven out because worker cost for such simple tasks became far too expensive. I'm all for making sure people are paid a good living wage, but forcing people to use antiquated practices is idiotic and runs counter to most economic philosophies except a command economy (which we all know can't compete on a global scale).
Retraining people to work in new sectors that have high labor demands is the only real solution to make sure the general population can maintain economic stability in the long term. Short term, higher minimum wage standards are needed definitely, but if that is all we rely on it will only drive inflation through the roof and erode the established groups of lower upper class and middle class workers. True upper class won't be hurt because they have the capital and diversification to keep their wealth invested outside currency stores.
Bingo. If I had mod points I'd up you instead of commenting... I worked in industrial automation for 6 years and have a very good understanding of this. Tech has advanced sufficiently now that we can make long term, very robust solutions for significantly cheaper than the labor costs. No matter how you slice it, that will not change.
There would literally have to be an automation tax applied to companies doing it and that will never happen. If it did they would have to take the money from the tax and give it out as a UBI (which the Republicans would call an entitlement) to keep the economy from collapsing. It probably wouldn't even stop the automation because the technology will likely advance much too quickly for them to keep an effective tax on it. Then on the Democrat side, they won't tax it because they are fine with the globalization drive and the only way we can keep up in the US is to allow for new job TYPE creation (such as skilled technicians and such).
I've tried to explain this again and again to people, but they don't seem to WANT to grasp it.
Up to a point. If the software is broken and unusable or near unusable then yes they should. That may even fall under deceptive trade practice, but just from a good moral and ethical standpoint it should be addressed. In perpetuity however, if that software has run fine for 10+ years, is out of warranty and the original support period has expired, no one has a right to want fixes for free (you can certainly complain and pay for fixes if they offer them). If I find a design flaw in my kitchen appliance after that same warranty/support expiration (in my case after only about 2 years), I get told to go to hell basically and no one bats an eye. You can be upset about it to some degree, but my only recourse is to never buy that brand of fridge again. There is a such thing as a reasonable expectation without expecting the developers to be contractually obligated slave labor for users.
First off, no they do not. Plenty of things in the world have no expectation of support once they are released, and yet people are perfectly fine purchasing that still even knowing that it may not be supported and will have issues. I have a refrigerator from Samsung that has serious design issues with the bottom of it freezing up. I spent 1500 dollars on that and guess what? I barely got the opportunity to complain about that, but now that it is out of warranty I'm SOL and pretty much everyone acknowledges that. Just because software has the mechanism available doesn't mean you have the right to demand a software developer or company to do anything and everything you want whenever you want. Reasonable expectations and terms are still fine, but who the fuck would want to do anything in the software world if they were contractually obligated to be your fucking code slave regardless of any monetary benefit? Especially given a lot of software that is designed well could easily hit a saturation point where no one is buying it at all anymore. If that software has free updates and support for forever who is paying for that? Do you want subsidized software support or just a bunch of devs living in a fucking hovel with just a laptop so you can keep your software up to date with them as your slave labor? A bit hyperbolic maybe, but this is the logical conclusion for the scenario you propose.
Now, all of that said, there is a grain of truth to your ranting. I am ok with the idea that they should allow modifications to it such that someone skilled in that work can roll their own repairs and even provide that service for free or at a cost to others if they don't want to do it. The only reason they get away with it is they are technically making money off of the designs still of the obsolete product and it would be severely detrimental to their business to release source code and trade secrets knowledge that would be required to do most of it effectively. Again, people and other businesses are not expected to release everything they have ever designed but don't sell/use any more into the public domain immediately. This expectation is still something that seems to be unique to software for some reason, and I feel it is unreasonable and unfounded in reality.
Now, if you want to rail against changing copyright laws to allow for an earlier expiration date that puts things in public domain that is fine. Hell, that I even agree should be the case because our current copyright timelines are crazy long for a lot of things.
That sounds like blind luck, a side gig, charity to customers, or something to that effect. Basic economics tells us that is a bad idea given the strong chance of cash flow restrictions in the future and while that is very generous of the developer(s) (not familiar with the product) it should NOT be a normal expectations and I would argue it is a bad idea long term anyway.
I'm not saying they should provide no support after you buy, but a reasonable End-of-Life date is perfectly acceptable and pretty much necessary to sustain a large operation. I'm not giving Microsoft a pass at all or Apple, but I am getting fed up with user's that expect software developers/groups to provide updates in perpetuity for free.
You don't ask an aerospace or electrical engineer to continue refining their designs for free after they make them do you? I am pretty sure most of them would laugh you out of the office. Now if they provide an inadequate design the first go around, yes it should be fixed, and most any engineering contract has some kind of reasonable support terms for the fabrication and installation at least, usually some of the initial operation too. If however someone comes back after 5 years of operation and says they need to modify this design at no charge they will straight up tell them to go to hell.
Oh I agree with that completely. If I buy a piece of software, especially an OS that is required for the machine to even be used, I should be able to use it as long as I want (albeit without indefinite support). I also wholeheartedly hate DRM that has to perpetually phone home for the software to continue functioning normally. It doesn't work in consumer applications to prevent piracy, and lawyers work a lot better in commercial applications for licensing enforcement as sad as that may be. I think whoever thought it was a good idea should be barred from contributing anymore ideas to the software world...
Slashdot Mirror
Facts aren't opinions.
I know, that is the point. Saying 99% of opinions are wrong is an opinion because by definition an opinion cannot actually be wrong in the sense of a provable statement. It is merely the particular viewpoint of the person stating it meaning another person's opinion can only be wrong relative to the person reviewing it. That is why you can't use an opinion as the basis of an argument that seeks to prove something as I was suggesting. I seriously feel like I am in a philosophy class right now...
You're wrong there, because if my statements are false they by virtue of their content cannot be used to dispute themselves.
They can be materially incorrect and contradict themselves however which is exactly what you did. Also pretty entertaining that you aren't disputing them being contradictory, you're trying to dispute the characterization that they are inversely inductive. At this juncture were being pedantic and just arguing about semantics. I've made my points so I'm done.
there's the fact that 99% of opinions are both illogical and wrong
You are aware of the irony in this statement and how it alone disproves your assertion right? You are literally stating an opinion about opinions being wrong and using that as the basis for your argument... That isn't proving a damn thing, its just waving your hands around saying out of the billions of people on Earth I am more correct than anyone because I said so. I'm talking about actual evidence to support the position which at best a psychologist might be able to get something with about a 70% confidence level (and even then, that is a stretch...).
Now, I know what you're thinking "but unthinking morons aren't necessarily corrupt" but that's where you're wrong, because they are, otherwise they would be thinking for themselves to begin with.
This is also a very flawed statement. If I took your word for it (shared your opinion within the same associative group) I would be one of your so called unthinking morons (and technically so would you by association), which by the very nature of me questioning your initial thought process I should not be (by your own logic).
Honestly you have basically displayed inverse inductive reasoning with these two statements.
New Jobs:
Data analyst in many fields to sift through all the new information systems create
Mechanics/technicians to fix the systems in place
Producers of the mechanics/electronics/software platforms for automation specifically (this entails A LOT, there are companies and an industry growing around this concept alone)
Consultants to provide oversight
Contractors to install the engineered components whether that is a bunch of millwrights, electricians, IT staff or any number of other trade jobs
Service techs to provide support and escalation support
Technical writers to document how everything works
Project managers
Systems operation teams to monitor how everything is running
And seriously the list just goes on. I've worked in automation as a senior engineer that assisted with coordinating the project needs from inception to post production support. There are so many jobs just to do the automation and maintain it that we are easily replacing what is displaced and gaining huge amounts of efficiency and capacity while we do it. These are just jobs around the automation too, it doesn't even take into consideration entirely different fields that are enabled by having enough work-force to start up since they are free from the mundane work a different industry.
It also isn't like automation is all fire and forget. Most of it has to be revisited and updated at least every 5 years for minor stuff and 10 to 15 for major. People are scared of it because they are unfamiliar with it and resent the engineers that are automating these jobs away so they never want to talk to them. I've seen it first hand with people literally making snarky comments at me and my team on site because they saw it as us getting rid of them when in reality we either improve their efficiency, create a more skilled higher paying job for them, or they end up with a better paying job elsewhere because of other improvements in the tech.
I'm not saying to ignore the issue either. I whole-heartedly support retraining programs both external and internal to companies to help displaced workers. I also am a fan of improving the efficiency of an existing worker where possible rather than out-right replacing them. As I said, we can do more to help with this stuff, but people are panicking over something they clearly don't understand. If automation were going to cause so much damage to the workforce how in the 30+ years it has been around has it done so little of that damage? Our unemployment rate is at near record lows right now. We literally have more jobs than people to fill them. About the only thing you can argue is underemployment is a bit of an issue, but improved retraining programs could curve a lot of that right now.
SoCs are incredibly cheap. Intel offers a stock windows 10 stick for under a hundred (and I think you can load Win 7 on them if you want), and the countless pieces of hardware that can provide similar features with other OSs and such are all pretty cheap (I can do a RPi build for about $60 and maybe an hour or two of initial setup that can then be cloned forever in a couple minutes). Price point is the main reason they are so cheap because if they weren't someone would have already undercut them.
That said, yea my firestick is likely harvesting data about me in at least a few ways, but it is a significantly better platform that I can run on any TV and transferable. I really don't want the smart tv because it is developed by a company that doesn't specialize in software platforms AT ALL and there are way better options out there.
People do tend to believe their own bullshit up to a point. Often times they are trying to rationalize their actions with some simple justification or diffusing responsibility as Opportunist described, but it is unfair to say they don't understand the ramifications of their actions otherwise they wouldn't even bother trying to justify it. It is more of a survival mechanism and comfort as if everyone thought we had to do all these evil things constantly they would most likely go crazy and end up dead possibly taking others with them. They are some people that just want to make themselves look better and parrot what they see or hear others do/use as justifications, but I sincerely doubt it is nearly as wide spread as you imply. Of course there is no way to prove this either way as we are inferring the mindset of others on a large scale, but interesting difference in view point.
While that is unfortunate for you, I don't believe that is the norm at all. I worked over 6 years doing automation in the airline industry which has probably invested more in automation than nearly any other industry except maybe manufacturing and can say that rarely happened/happens. I worked at a lot of sites around the country over those years and due to the culture of it I kept in touch with a lot of people. Generally, managers were eager to move employees on to more valuable work. Still continues to this day, and I can't believe that it is just a culture in that industry.
Occasionally I did see an incompetent manager (not surprisingly, it was more common on the government side), but most of those were weeded out relatively quickly. There were a few exceptions similar to your former boss, but in my experience they are pretty far outside the norm. Hell even the bad managers had that mentality at least, they just weren't very good at applying it. Even in my current roll out of that industry, most of the managers here have to be pretty intelligent about the tech and business or they shitcan them before they do much damage. You probably did just get unlucky with your boss, or they were really unfamiliar with how to adapt to automation.
This is a fantastic point to bring up actually. Automation has been around for 30+ years, you would think that if it were going to destroy the working world and economy it might have made some progress by now right?
This is hyperbolic rhetoric from anyone afraid of change in general. Most of the reason that happened is because of the societal shifts that accompanied the industrial revolution. Everyone needed to go from trying to live on a plot of land and do everything themselves to a centralized production model. This required people to relocate and change the mindset of the past. Everyone now needed to congregate to do work, not sit in their shack of choice god knows where and have to understand an entire process to get any work done. Due to the resistance by the general population, that became difficult for people to accept until we had a uniting effort like a large scale war to fight. Before then, most of the fighting the US was doing was with the native american tribes and the Cuban Revolution (which was not a large scale war).
WWI was the first large scale conflict of the more 'modern' era and everyone quickly realized it really was an entire country having to fight the war simply because turn around time for both sides to produce supplies and machines for fighting was significantly better. Not to mention we were literally able to re-tool production to fit strategic needs as opposed to the old war mentality of fight with what you have because building a new one takes YEARS. As a funny aside, strange now that technology has advanced seriously on this front we are back to that in some ways (i.e. that aircraft carrier better not sink...). This led people to FINALLY overcome their aversion to industrialization (not to mention the idea had been around for a couple generations by that point). WWII was more of the same only by that point technology was openly embraced because everyone saw how much advancement was made during WWI. At the end of the day it really just fueled our love-affair with war-age technologies that continues to this day.
As I also alluded to, the old mentality had largely died off in those 80 years enabling people to embrace the new technology and society around it. The same is happening now, but the technology advancement is happening at a much slower pace than the during the industrial revolution.
Automation has been around for 30+ years and is still laughable low on overtaking most labor markets. I work as an automation engineer and can tell you it takes TIME to not just distill the processes down into a good logic flow, but to produce the technology required for that flow and to install it. When automation happens it is not an overnight thing at all, and the current major automation efforts are focusing on the low hanging fruit still. Industries with razor sharp margins that need to be able to breath, jobs that really are just time drains and don't require a lot of thought, and market correction where work was being way overpaid for to begin with. I'm sorry to all the manufacturing types out there, but getting $40 a hour to put a couple of screws in something is not what I would call valuable skills deserving more than everyone else. People may work hard at a simple job and that is admirable in a lot of ways, but as far as economics that alone is not what a person can live on.
Like it or not we are in a capitalist society and must compete on a global scale. That means efficiency will win out at the end of the day and society views each person mostly as a sum of their skills. I readily agree that it is a cold and callous viewpoint, but that is reality. As many others have pointed out, if we don't do it someone else will do it because Pandora's box is already open.
I would completely disagree with the viewpoint that automation could be apocalyptic to the economy and working though because the market simply doesn't work that way. Think about it this way, if automation starts seriously driving up the unemployment rate to something really alarming, even just 10%, how exactly will companies continue to invest in it? If that big of a segment has no real income who exactly is paying for these goods and services that would allow companies to have enough capital
While I have to concede he was a great contributor to the tech world for various reason (in spite of my particular disdain for Apple), please don't be revisionist in saying he was "better than Gates" or a genius at tech. Microsoft CRUSHED them while Gates was there once they were in more direct competition. Don't forget, for the longest time Microsoft worked on the Apple platform's software and overtook them much to Jobs' protest. Microsoft fell down under Balmer's leadership after Jobs made his return. It wasn't until 2008 that Apple came into force as they are (or maybe were, they are starting to fall some) now, and by that time Gates was mostly out the door.
Then, go read some interviews with Woz about what a sociopath Jobs was to get where he was especially in the early years of Apple. Go read about his terrible habits (he fucking died partially because he was a damn fruitarian and gave himself horrilbe pancreactic complications and refused to heed doctor's advice because of his own damn ego) and about how he was an asshole to everyone. Don't get me wrong, from what I understand Gates was not a lot better as a person (back then at least, say what you will but he is a hell of a philanthropist now and him and Melinda are aware of the unfairness that their wealth affords them), but that isn't part of my argument.
Jobs was less genius and more cut-throat businessman that did whatever he felt he needed to succeed. His problem the first time around was he didn't know enough on his own to be such a cut-throat ass hole and still succeed. He needed other people and once they knew how terrible he really was they were more careful. He then didn't add enough technical value to offset HIM, hence his ousting. When he came back he had made enough mistakes and cut enough throats to know what he needed to do and had a much better grip on the tech (Woz carried his ass in the early years, don't forget Apple II was Woz's design). He made some contributions to the industry for sure, but I would not come even close to calling him a genius with tech. Now marketing, I will give you, he did that pretty well and Tim Cook has largely rode what Jobs had already set up. Apple will likely fail now without Jobs because they got complacent with their product offerings and just started collecting money for marginal upgrades. Meanwhile Microsoft did great during Gates' entire tenure, and even if Apple has surpassed them, the company has never been on the verge of death and always stayed near the top.
Not really. Most states forbid previous employers from disclosing anything beyond, "Did X person work here?" and "Are they re-hirable?" Many companies try to get around that by asking for managerial references because the manager can then be counted as a personal reference that can disclose whatever they want. The last company I left actually straight up told me they wouldn't disclose anything to another employer just to avoid any possible liability from it, and I left on good terms with them. Basically, if you don't have any contacts you want to keep at the employer you are leaving, burn away if so inclined.
I personally haven't ever done it and don't see that situation ever arising for me, but who knows maybe some of these people were seriously slighted and wanted to teach their employer a lesson.
You would still have essentially the same with C# and Xamarin though albeit there would have to be a final abstraction layer where the Android and iOS calls deviate. The thing is, it would be no worse than implementing abstracted providers for data sourcing and would likely be much easier (probably a lot of 1-3 line methods implementing the specifics).
Call me skeptical but I am not impressed with Flutter as of this writing. For now I'll merely agree to disagree.
I disagree, but you are welcome to your opinion. I still wouldn't say lines of code is that big of a percentage of the codebase, but if that is your metric it might be a bit higher (45% I would hazard a guess). UI is significantly more boring to me as most of it is just setting up the relative calculation formulas and a lot of tediousness. Initial UI/UX design is more involved, but not exactly that technical either. In my experience a significantly less experienced and less costly dev can work on the UI and get it done exceptionally well, whereas if you have the same less experienced devs writing your baseline business logic and core code that application will be complete garbage regardless of how pretty the UI might turn out (I've watched it unfold a few times and then the codebase get thrown out entirely later on).
My design philosophy and experiences would make me stick to my original stance that Xamarin is much more well suited to creating these cross platform applications, but I can see your side of the coin as well. Time will tell who is ultimately right, but I would still remain cautious about Flutter given the landscape of dead services and frameworks Google has killed in just the last few years.
That is the point though. If they are going to have different UI implementations for each OS what exactly did being able to have the same one used accomplish for someone? Hence why I really don't see an advantage. This reminds me very much of when people used to use Infragistics constantly and it was the most painful thing to work with, but the original thought was that it could keep everything standard when it really didn't need to be standardized.
Not on a mobile platform where 90% of the code you write is GUI.
No. God no. I've written enough mobile applications before, it isn't even close to 90%, maybe 30% tops. UI is not the end all be all of development, it just seems that way if that is all you ever work with. The business logic and supporting code is way more important and a lot more costly to develop properly than UI ever dreamed. Maybe you have less exposure to C# designs styles, but everything is generally done in generics and binds in actual libraries later (sometimes compiler config, other times at run time). If the design is applied properly very minimal code has to be written in the UI itself (MVVM or MVC anyone?). I'm not sure what mobile applications you have been exposed to, but we must have vastly different design philosophies and/or experiences.
Not really sure what you think cross platform means, but Xamarin is for the purposes of comparison to the Flutter framework, which was what I was doing. If you somehow think Flutter is 100% cross platform on everything and not just "mostly" like Xamarin you're wrong. Now, I've not used Xamarin extensively, but my previous employer was using it to develop an enterprise level solution that was generally hardware agnostic so I do have familiarity with the high level capabilities.
If you mean certain pieces are not completely generic, obviously no framework is able to run both platforms 100% native from the EXACT same codebase as they have to be made generic and not all things in many of these types of platforms are analogous. If it were that easy the Windows/Linux problem would have been solved years ago.
From the comparisons, the main thing Xamarin has a short-coming in (some would argue it isn't a short-coming either) is the UI is not completely portable. Business logic and all the meat and potatoes basically are though which is way more important in my opinion. Flutter has some of the same portability, but from what I understand there is a way larger percentage of stuff that is not portable between the two. I also really think Flutter trying to make a generic UI is idiotic at worst and misguided at best, given a lot of software groups will/would likely be designing different UIs for each platform given the differences in the OSs anyway. Certain key functions are better used in different ways on each of the systems. If the model and controller are properly interfaced and abstracted anyway then it is much easier to just plug in whatever view is appropriate and not try to jam the square through the circle.
Short of straight up banning anything not developed on their platform (which guess what! they only control half of the platform both sides are targeting) it really makes little difference if they own the Android platform. They would have to individually curate and remove anything not developed on Flutter or whatever shit they settle on because the entire point of these frameworks and compilers is to make it so the system is running compatible binaries that are basically the same as the native code (obviously not the exact same, but the point stands). This would turn into a useless game of whack-a-mole and potentially wouldn't even matter because they can't make every publisher turn over their source code and development strategies to check. Even if they put it in the ToS they would lose a lot of big players immediately and kill their own platform.
My exact point is Xamarin fills this need already and first to market is a powerful position. Microsoft can also promote the exact same toolkit with pretty much just as much gusto. Do you think developers are exclusively looking at new tools through Google platforms only or something? Consumer usage of Android literally has no bearing on this given Xamarin and Flutter are marketed to developers.
I instantly thought the same thing. I really don't see any secret sauce to make people want to use this framework when Xamarin is free, supported, somewhat established, and from a large vendor that will be much more likely to continue putting time and money into it. Just because Google's army of "lets use eclectic shit because we have money to burn" programmers decided to develop something in it does not mean it will catch on with everyone else. They are welcome to try, but my gut says dead on arrival...
This is horribly bleak and way hyperbolic. Right now we can EASILY retrain the vast majority of the displaced workforce to perform in another industry. Hell, the automation creates more jobs doing different work, often times more than it displaced. Mechanics to maintain the equipment, frabricators and installers just to put it together, data analysts to look at the high level information the system generates, engineers to design it and build the logic, and the list keeps going.
This isn't even a new concept in human history. Technological advances have displaced workers for centuries and guess what, society didn't crumble. When they started making field plows to make planting easier I'm sure the farmhands wondered what they would do to survive and they found work in stores selling the extra produce and making the equipment. When Henry Ford came up with the assembly line, individuals that did the entire process of building something again started making the equipment for the lines, people moved on to selling the new surplus equipment, and they again kept designing. Each instance of a major technological advancement also had people shrieking about the end of days and the collapse of society. It still hasn't come and isn't likely to any time soon. We still have a lot of technology advancements to come.
There are only two reasons I see for people to fight it. One, fear of not being able to adapt, and two, no DESIRE to change. I understand a fear of not being able to adapt. There was a good article about imposter syndrome on Slashdot not long ago that gave a good perspective on some of that. With good retraining programs (which are to the country's benefit) this could be curved though. On the second point, I get people don't want to change, but unfortunately that is reality. Progress requires change and if we think about it on a societal and species level, it is necessary to survive. Humans are made to need change even though we fear it and sometimes hate it. I understand trepidation, but it has to be put to the side.
Well I suppose it was presumptive of me to assume no one would want to implement it, but its misguided at best and downright dangerous at worst. It'll drive the tech companies out of the country just like the general manufacturing. The difference is a tax would be government driven for no real reason other then poorly understood protectionism while the manufacturing was driven out because worker cost for such simple tasks became far too expensive. I'm all for making sure people are paid a good living wage, but forcing people to use antiquated practices is idiotic and runs counter to most economic philosophies except a command economy (which we all know can't compete on a global scale).
Retraining people to work in new sectors that have high labor demands is the only real solution to make sure the general population can maintain economic stability in the long term. Short term, higher minimum wage standards are needed definitely, but if that is all we rely on it will only drive inflation through the roof and erode the established groups of lower upper class and middle class workers. True upper class won't be hurt because they have the capital and diversification to keep their wealth invested outside currency stores.
Bingo. If I had mod points I'd up you instead of commenting... I worked in industrial automation for 6 years and have a very good understanding of this. Tech has advanced sufficiently now that we can make long term, very robust solutions for significantly cheaper than the labor costs. No matter how you slice it, that will not change.
There would literally have to be an automation tax applied to companies doing it and that will never happen. If it did they would have to take the money from the tax and give it out as a UBI (which the Republicans would call an entitlement) to keep the economy from collapsing. It probably wouldn't even stop the automation because the technology will likely advance much too quickly for them to keep an effective tax on it. Then on the Democrat side, they won't tax it because they are fine with the globalization drive and the only way we can keep up in the US is to allow for new job TYPE creation (such as skilled technicians and such).
I've tried to explain this again and again to people, but they don't seem to WANT to grasp it.
Up to a point. If the software is broken and unusable or near unusable then yes they should. That may even fall under deceptive trade practice, but just from a good moral and ethical standpoint it should be addressed. In perpetuity however, if that software has run fine for 10+ years, is out of warranty and the original support period has expired, no one has a right to want fixes for free (you can certainly complain and pay for fixes if they offer them). If I find a design flaw in my kitchen appliance after that same warranty/support expiration (in my case after only about 2 years), I get told to go to hell basically and no one bats an eye. You can be upset about it to some degree, but my only recourse is to never buy that brand of fridge again. There is a such thing as a reasonable expectation without expecting the developers to be contractually obligated slave labor for users.
First off, no they do not. Plenty of things in the world have no expectation of support once they are released, and yet people are perfectly fine purchasing that still even knowing that it may not be supported and will have issues. I have a refrigerator from Samsung that has serious design issues with the bottom of it freezing up. I spent 1500 dollars on that and guess what? I barely got the opportunity to complain about that, but now that it is out of warranty I'm SOL and pretty much everyone acknowledges that. Just because software has the mechanism available doesn't mean you have the right to demand a software developer or company to do anything and everything you want whenever you want. Reasonable expectations and terms are still fine, but who the fuck would want to do anything in the software world if they were contractually obligated to be your fucking code slave regardless of any monetary benefit? Especially given a lot of software that is designed well could easily hit a saturation point where no one is buying it at all anymore. If that software has free updates and support for forever who is paying for that? Do you want subsidized software support or just a bunch of devs living in a fucking hovel with just a laptop so you can keep your software up to date with them as your slave labor? A bit hyperbolic maybe, but this is the logical conclusion for the scenario you propose.
Now, all of that said, there is a grain of truth to your ranting. I am ok with the idea that they should allow modifications to it such that someone skilled in that work can roll their own repairs and even provide that service for free or at a cost to others if they don't want to do it. The only reason they get away with it is they are technically making money off of the designs still of the obsolete product and it would be severely detrimental to their business to release source code and trade secrets knowledge that would be required to do most of it effectively. Again, people and other businesses are not expected to release everything they have ever designed but don't sell/use any more into the public domain immediately. This expectation is still something that seems to be unique to software for some reason, and I feel it is unreasonable and unfounded in reality.
Now, if you want to rail against changing copyright laws to allow for an earlier expiration date that puts things in public domain that is fine. Hell, that I even agree should be the case because our current copyright timelines are crazy long for a lot of things.
That sounds like blind luck, a side gig, charity to customers, or something to that effect. Basic economics tells us that is a bad idea given the strong chance of cash flow restrictions in the future and while that is very generous of the developer(s) (not familiar with the product) it should NOT be a normal expectations and I would argue it is a bad idea long term anyway.
I'm not saying they should provide no support after you buy, but a reasonable End-of-Life date is perfectly acceptable and pretty much necessary to sustain a large operation. I'm not giving Microsoft a pass at all or Apple, but I am getting fed up with user's that expect software developers/groups to provide updates in perpetuity for free.
You don't ask an aerospace or electrical engineer to continue refining their designs for free after they make them do you? I am pretty sure most of them would laugh you out of the office. Now if they provide an inadequate design the first go around, yes it should be fixed, and most any engineering contract has some kind of reasonable support terms for the fabrication and installation at least, usually some of the initial operation too. If however someone comes back after 5 years of operation and says they need to modify this design at no charge they will straight up tell them to go to hell.
Oh I agree with that completely. If I buy a piece of software, especially an OS that is required for the machine to even be used, I should be able to use it as long as I want (albeit without indefinite support). I also wholeheartedly hate DRM that has to perpetually phone home for the software to continue functioning normally. It doesn't work in consumer applications to prevent piracy, and lawyers work a lot better in commercial applications for licensing enforcement as sad as that may be. I think whoever thought it was a good idea should be barred from contributing anymore ideas to the software world...